DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Orbital
Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space
technology companies, today introduced its GEOStar-3TM
satellite platform, stating the program is now ready for delivery to
commercial satellite operators on production schedules of 24 to 27
months. The medium-class GEOStar-3 platform is an extension of Orbital’s
highly successful small-class GEOStar-2 bus that has led its market
niche for the past decade. This evolutionary technology upgrade
represents an incremental expansion of the company’s flight-proven,
low-risk product line, based on a standard platform with
configure-to-order payload flexibility to maximize customer value for
fixed satellite services (FSS), direct to home (DTH) and high throughput
satellite (HTS) applications.

“The enhanced capacity, flexibility and scalability of the GEOStar-3
platform enables us to address the requirements of the medium-size
satellite market, offering customers more payload power, higher
throughput and better overall value,” said Mr. Christopher Richmond,
Orbital’s Senior Vice President of its Communications Satellite business
unit. “This product expands Orbital’s addressable market, while
improving our reliability and delivery schedules to customers around the
world, including the high-growth, high-throughput satellite segment.”

The GEOStar-3 platform incorporates key enhancements that evolved from
the GEOStar-2 bus, including an upgraded electrical power system that
boosts payload power capability from 5 kilowatts up to 8 kilowatts and a
physically larger bus allowing the vehicle to support communications
payloads weighing up to 800 kilograms.

The company is currently under contract to deliver the first GEOStar-3
in early 2016 and is in active negotiations with several other customers
for additional orders, including for its new hybrid electric propulsion
(EP) platform option. The hybrid GEOStar-3 design uses traditional
chemical propulsion to reach orbit in a matter of days, not months like
a full EP satellite, and then performs station-keeping operations for 15
years or more with EP, resulting in an optimum mass-efficient system.

Orbital also designed the GEOStar-3 platform to enable dual-launch
configurations. The ability to stack two GEOStar satellites on a single
launch vehicle significantly reduces the overall system cost and
provides the widest array of launch options possible, a key benefit of
the GEOStar-3 platform to Orbital’s customers.

The GEOStar-3 satellite will continue Orbital’s tradition of
industry-leading short-cycle delivery schedules. The company’s
small-class GEOStar-2 spacecraft are regularly delivered in 22 to 24
months and the company expects to deliver the medium-class GEOStar-3
spacecraft in 24 to 27 months. Like the GEOStar-2 satellite, the
GEOStar-3 platform is designed for a service life of at least 15 years.

About Orbital

Orbital develops and manufactures small- and medium-class rockets and
space systems for commercial, military and civil government customers.
The company’s primary products are satellites and launch vehicles,
including low-Earth orbit, geosynchronous-Earth orbit and planetary
spacecraft for communications, remote sensing, scientific and defense
missions; human-rated space systems for Earth-orbit, lunar and other
missions; ground- and air-launched rockets that deliver satellites into
orbit; and missile defense systems that are used as interceptor and
target vehicles. Orbital also provides satellite subsystems and
space-related technical services to government agencies and
laboratories. More information about Orbital can be found at http://www.orbital.com.
Follow the company on Twitter @OrbitalSciences.